84. Chapter 84
“Helen?”
Graham knocked softly on the bathroom door and tried the knob. She was sitting on the floor against the wall across from the toilet. He held a can of soda out to her, and she took it without looking at him. Some of the pink had returned to her cheeks.
She looked like a woman who was about to leave him. He almost turned around and left to avoid the inevitable.
That’s what a chump would do, he told himself. He wasn’t a chump. He’d just been shot at and was still alive and his heart hadn’t actually exploded in his chest and his fiancée was still here.
Helen opened the soda and drank it down.
Thirst, after pushing the car through the raging heat, was taking precedence now that they’d survived gunfire.
Graham sat beside her and propped his arms on his knees.
This was not the way he pictured the second-to-last map going.
Then, he’d expected some kind of disaster, hadn’t he?
He’d been monitoring the gas gauge since they crossed the border into California into endless desert.
He couldn’t have predicted a shootout though.
“They’re calling someone to take care of Saul,” Graham said. “Someone not the police.”
“Why not the police?” She croaked.
“Saul refused.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He got shot.”
She swallowed, wincing as if her throat was as raw as her voice. “No, I mean what’s wrong with him that he doesn’t want the police?”
“No idea.”
“The hospital will call. They have to, for bullet wounds.”
“We’ll be long gone by then.”
She was looking at him the same way he’d looked at Saul when he insisted Graham keep the cops out of it.
“It wasn’t my choice,” he said quickly. “None of us got hurt. If we have to wait for the police, we might be stuck here all night. I’d rather get the hell out of here as fast as we can.”
It was almost verbatim the argument Jase made after they helped Saul into a chair and Lindsey sat next to him to dab his forehead with a cool washcloth.
Graham had never seen her spring into action the way she had taking care of Saul’s wound.
There were a lot of things, Graham suspected, he’d missed in a year of not paying attention.
Helen was quiet, the only sound the grinding of the fan on the ceiling, until she drew her knees to her chest and said, “I threw up.”
There was a sour note in the air the citrus cone air freshener on the back of the toilet didn’t cover. Graham took her hand, kissed the back, and set it on his knee. “How are you feeling now?”
“Like I should’ve stayed in Texas.”
His head swiveled to her and his palm found the tender knot in his sternum. He was surprised he hadn’t worn his skin down to the bone by now. “You serious?”
It took her a little too long to reply. “My odds of getting shot and stabbed and maimed have greatly increased since I left,” she said finally.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know anything like this was going to happen.”
“First the motorcycle club. Now an actual person shooting at us. Your dad’s put us in serious danger. Twice.”
She was right, and she didn’t even know about his dad’s history here.
“I wouldn’t have asked you to come with us if I thought…” he trailed off, noticing the haunted shadows in her eyes. His chest pinched knowing bringing her on the trip had put them there. “The first few days were nothing like this.”
“I’ve never been more afraid in my life, Graham,” Helen said, her voice edged with anger rather than the fear he would’ve expected. “We could’ve actually died today.”
“I know.” Inhaling deep, forcing air around the perpetual knot beneath his ribs, Graham said, “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“One way or another, I keep feeling like I’m going to lose you.”
“Never. I’m yours.” He punctuated it to remind her of Austin and the promises they both made.
“You weren’t.”
It took longer than it should have for him to realize the anger in her steely blue eyes was directed at him now, not his old man. Still reeling from gunshots, Graham had forgotten about the punch on the highway and everything leading up to it. He stretched his jaw, pulling on the fresh bruise.
“I can’t change the past, Helen,” he said as evenly as he could muster. “I’m here, now.”
“I hate that you were with her for a year.”
“Is that why I got hit this time?”
“No. You got hit because your ex has bad aim.”
“Helen. We got shot at, and this is what you’re worried about? Me and Lindsey?”
“That should tell you how important it is to me,” Helen said. “This is exponentially harder than I thought it would be.”
“Shit.” He rubbed his chest, his eyes, his temples. His whole body hurt knowing she was hurting for reasons he couldn’t fix. “Can we—how do we get past it?”
“I can get over knowing she was with you. I can. It might not be until this is over and we don’t have to see her again, but I will. It’s everything else.”
“What?”
“With her and Jase. Do you really think they’re messing around? Why does it bother you?”
The back of Graham’s head hit the wall with a heavy thud. “It’s not about love, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
She studied him, not for the first time, for a sign he wasn’t over Lindsey. He was too exhausted, his nerves too frayed, to convince her.
“Then what’s it about?” she asked.
“You know my brother. If she gets involved with him, it’ll get messy.”
“Let her reap the consequences.”
He sighed. “When this is over, I want a clean break, so she’s out of our lives forever. Isn’t that what you just said you were waiting for—to not have to see her again?”
She interlaced their fingers and gave his hand a squeeze.
“I am,” Helen said. “As long as that’s all it is.”